Monday, March 9, 2009

Rulers and paradoxes.

Yesterday I was watching a special on the Holocaust. They depicted some of that atrocities that occurred during that period in history. Then it was mentioned that there was a rumor that Hitler's grandmother was Jewish and that Hitler was also part Jewish. Whether it is speculation, a rumor, or fact we will never really know. But the thought is bizarre and nebulous. Beyond everything it is extremely paradoxical. This would have depicted how we as humans embody self hatred and try to vehemently reject what we view as flaws. How can you oppress your own people or people that share your blood line? Since Hitler despised and oppressed the Jewish people maybe he didn't want his perceived weakness to be projected by any revelation of his Jewish heritage, so maybe the documents or any remnants of his ethnic history was eradicated before anybody could get their hands on it. He had a tumultuous relationship with his father who was stern and strict himself which could explain his inferiority complex and the voracious desire to be powerful and dominant. But to hypothetically think that he would enslave and kill his own people is self contradictory and shows how much we as humans subconsciously or consciously reject who we are and hate ourselves. It is a true a testament to the phenomenon of paradox that perpetually plagues the human existence.

Moving on to another nefarious dictator who's reign was concurrent with Hitler's is Rafael Trujillo from the Dominican Republic who ironically was born in my parent's hometown of San Cristobal. Trujillo is historically known to have a Haitian grandmother. The stark irony strikes again. He killed an abominable amount of Haitians in his day because he viewed them as inferior and thought they were damaging or polluting the race. Some of his legacy still lingers in DR ( Dominican Republic) as some Dominicans have animosity towards Haitians and vice versa. Here we see that he was trying to reject his Haitian heritage and what better way than to marginalize Haitians and massacre thousands of them. Trujillo was a heartless tyrant who killed anybody who opposed his regime not just Haitians. Before he ordered the killings of Haitians he covered up the fact that he was part Haitian. Trujillo had one of the longest reigns of any dictator and ruled Dominican Republic for 30 years from 1930-1961.

In both these scenarios we can see that both of these men have been afflicted by self hatred and seek out the entity within themselves that they hated the most and persecuted the entity to its fullest extent. But while they were killing the Haitians and Jews they were actually killing themselves. Now that is PARADOX and IRONY in nutshell. This internal conflict is not unique as we see in our everyday lives how people deny their own race or ethnic origin. It is evident in the Black and Latino community where some people hate themselves subconsciously because of the way they are treated! It is also evident in other ethnicities. Is this a plausible theory, you be the judge! This is ARod signing off!

1 comment:

Ok so I was tryna comment on your other post- product of your environment but it won't let me - n because I have a good comment this time n to prove that I don't dislike ur blog lol I'm posting my comment here lol

So i actually kind of agree with you about this topic I say kind of only because I would have never thought to mention Ivy league schools - which is a valid point but I would have taken it in the other direction as in I live in an urban area where there are mostly Blacks, Latinos and other Caribbeans, bad educational systems and yatta yatta yatta so as a result most of the social issues I care about deal with this particular population, children and the educational system, women's rights, and so on. Therefore I think that I am a product of my environment which isn't necessarily a bad thing as some people might think. So I think basically: people are a product of their environments and as a result the environment becomes a product of the people who impact it.